Saturday, March 3, 2018

Musings of a Maverick Methodist on America's Holy War

By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

Divide and conquer is an age-old strategy
in war, and Satan has used it in his holy war against God’s efforts to reconcile and redeem humanity.Unfortunately, Satan does a convincing
imitation of God in the church and in politics.That was evident in the 2016 elections when most white Christians voted
for candidates who supported Satan’s strategy to divide and conquer.

America
is as divided as it has been since its Civil War, but in today’s holy war there
are no shots being fired and no prisoners being taken.The casualties are wounded in spirit, not in
body, and are referred to as nones
and the spiritual but not religious.The strategic objectives of this holy war are
not geographical but human.It’s a battle
for the hearts and minds of Christians.

Where
are the battle lines drawn?Between those
who believe that Christianity should be based on discipleship, or struggling to
follow the teachings of Jesus on sacrificial love, and those who believe that
Christianity should be defined by exclusivist beliefs that ignore the cost of
discipleship but that are popular in America’s materialistic and hedonistic
culture.

A
reconciliation of competing forces within Christianity could end the holy war;
but if reconciliation requires making it more important to follow Jesus than to
worship him, the cost of discipleship would undermine the popularity of
Christianity.Conversely, if exclusivist
Christian beliefs continue to subordinate the moral imperative of the greatest commandment to love God and
our neighbors as ourselves, then Jesus will become a casualty of America’s holy
war.

Central
to this issue is whether God sent Jesus as a blood sacrifice to atone for our sins,
or to bring us God’s word—or both?Until
the Reformation, the Church taught that both faith and works were required for
salvation; then Martin Luther’s doctrine of sola
fide asserted that faith alone in
God’s grace was sufficient.In the 18th
century John Wesley reasserted that both faith in Jesus as God’s Son and following
his teachings as God’s word are required for salvation.

In
the early 20th century, fundamentalist beliefs in an inerrant and
infallible Bible revived ancient Jewish beliefs that God rewarded the faithful
with wealth and power, and evangelicals joined with big business to promote
conservative politics.Jimmy Carter was
the last Democrat supported by evangelicals.By 1980 Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority was committed to the Republican
Party and had subordinated the altruistic teachings of Jesus to partisan politics.

Among
American evangelicals, Billy Graham was an exception who proved the rule.As “America’s pastor,” he was a sincere and
humble man who preached an exclusivist gospel of Christianity and struggled to
follow the teachings of Jesus.He was in
a long line of evangelical preachers, followed by his son, Franklin Graham,
Jerry Falwell, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Paula White, Robert Jeffress and others, all
of whom gave partisan politics priority over the teachings of Jesus.

Evangelical
Christianity culminated in the prosperity gospel.It’s a gospel of cheap grace that resonates
with America’s materialistic and hedonistic culture.It’s more like Ayn Rand’s self-centered
objectivism than the altruistic gospel of Jesus; and like ancient Judaism, it
claims to reward the faithful with wealth and power.It demonstrated its political power when
evangelicals elected Donald Trump and a Republican Congress in 2016.

Until
2016, Republican presidents and congress made an effort to balance individual
rights with providing for the common good.But that changed with the election of a radical right president and
congress.In 2017 they demonstrated more
of a commitment to provide wealth and power for the rich than to provide for the
common good.

Race
is a salient factor in America’s polarized partisan politics.While most white Christians supported Donald
Trump and Republicans in 2016, most black Christians supported Democrats.And while mainstream white Christians refused
to mix religion and politics in church, most voted Republican.The prosperity gospel and Trump’s campaign to
make [white] America great again defeated the gospel of Jesus in 2016.

Christian
holy war is hyperbole intended to make a point: The gospel of Jesus is under
siege.Robin Meyers has stated the issue
as Saving Jesus from the Church.That’s a daunting challenge for an institution that relies on popularity
for its power.It will be extremely
difficult for a religion in America that requires self-denial and sacrificial
love to win a popularity contest with one that has no cost of discipleship and promises
wealth and power for its faithful.

Notes:

George Will noted that Billy
Graham was immensely popular, but that his effect on Christianity is hard to quantify.“His audiences were exhorted to make a ‘decision’
for Christ, but a moment of volition might be (in theologian Dietrich
Bonhoeffer’s phrase) an exercise in ‘cheap grace.’ Graham’s preaching, to large
rallies and broadcast audiences, gave comfort to many people and probably
improved some.” Graham frequently vowed to abstain from partisan politics and
almost as frequently slipped this self-imposed leash, almost always on behalf
of Republicans. …Before the 1960 election, Graham, displaying some cognitive
dissonance, said that if John F. Kennedy were a true Catholic, he would be a
president more loyal to the pope than to the Constitution but that he would
fully support him if elected. …In 1952, he said he wanted to meet with all the
candidates ‘to give them the moral side of the thing.’ He was 33. He applied flattery
with a trowel, comparing Dwight Eisenhower’s first foreign policy speech to the
Sermon on the Mount and calling Richard Nixon ‘the most able and the best
trained man for the job probably in American history.’ He told Nixon that God
had given him, Nixon, ‘supernatural wisdom.’ Graham should have heeded the
psalmist’s warning about putting one’s faith in princes. On Feb. 1, 1972,
unaware of Nixon’s Oval Office taping system, when Nixon ranted about how Jews ‘totally
dominated’ the media, Graham said ‘this stranglehold has got to be broken or
this country is going down the drain.’ He also told Nixon that Jews are the
ones ‘putting out the pornographic stuff.’ One can reasonably acquit Graham of
anti-Semitism only by convicting him of toadying. When Graham read transcripts
of Nixon conspiring to cover up crimes, Graham said that what ‘shook me most’
was Nixon’s vulgar language.See https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/billy-graham-was-no-prophet-thats-why-america-loved-him/2018/02/21/398ce31a-1722-11e8-92c9-376b4fe5.

Jon Meacham noted that “Graham’s
first mission was not the Christian faith but Fuller brushes, a popular
household item sold door to door. In the summer of 1936, the 17-year-old Billy
threw himself into the job. “Selling those brushes became a cause to me,”
Graham recalled. “I was dedicated to it, and the money became secondary. I felt
that every family ought to have Fuller brushes as a matter of principle.” He
learned a lot in those warm months of knocking on doors. “Sincerity is the
biggest part of selling anything,” he said, “including the Christian plan of
salvation.”Which raises a question:
What, exactly, was Graham “selling” — the term is his — when he preached to
untold millions? It’s more than an academic inquiry. With the possible
exception of Pope John Paul II, Graham articulated the Christian religion to
more people over a longer period of time than any other man who ever lived. In
the popular post-World War II mind — in America and around the world — Graham
arguably was Protestant Christianity. And his vision of the faith was one that
sought, if not exactly a mushy middle, then a center. …He preached a
Christianity that eschewed the extremes of the theological fervor of the 20th
century.

Graham came of age as theological
liberalism, which had grown out of higher criticism of the Bible in the 19th
century, roiled the religious world. Called “modernism,” the higher-criticism
movement was deeply influenced by Enlightenment insights about the nature of
reality and of sacred texts. Biblical stories of supernatural events, including
the Virgin Birth and the miracles of Jesus, were seen not as historical
accounts but as literary and theological inventions.

Some Christians responded by
seeking refuge in what became known as fundamentalism, a term coming from a
series of orthodox tracts, “The Fundamentals,” published between 1910 and 1915.
Ordained as a Baptist preacher in 1939, Graham was neither liberal nor
fundamentalist but evangelical. Where fundamentalists took a stark, separatist
view of religion and culture, evangelical Christians such as Graham tended to
focus their faith on the salvific work of Jesus. Where fundamentalists read the
Bible as the inerrant word of God, evangelicals read it seriously but not
literally. Delineating the difference between his vision of Christianity and
that of the fundamentalists in the 1950s, Graham said: “We would attempt to
lead and love rather than vilify, criticize and beat. Fundamentalism has failed
miserably with the big stick approach; now it is time to take the big love
approach.”

Perhaps his most significant
attempt to systematize his theology came in 1974, when he was a leading sponsor
of a conference of global evangelicals in Switzerland that issued the Lausanne
Covenant. “To evangelize,” the document said, “is to spread the good news that
Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the
Scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord he now offers the forgiveness of sins
and the liberating gifts of the Spirit to all who repent and believe.” Like
Graham, the covenant accepted the biblical truth that Jesus was the only route
to salvation. “There is no other name by which we must be saved,” the document
said. Pretty standard evangelical stuff, but as he grew older Graham became
less dogmatic about salvation, at least in conversation. In 2006, when I was
interviewing Graham, I asked him whether he believed heaven will be closed to
good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people. “Those are decisions
only the Lord will make,” Graham said. “It would be foolish for me to speculate
on who will be there and who won’t . . . I don’t want to speculate about all
that. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the
whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they
have.”

Eric Alexander, Editor-in-Chief
of Progressive Christianity, responded to a reader’s question, What does
progressive Christianity think about the life of Billy Graham? as follows:

“Overall I’m sure Billy Graham
was probably a decent and caring person with genuine motives to help the world.
But in many ways I think Billy Graham was one of the worst things to happen to
Christianity over the past few decades. He harnessed his magnetic type of
passion and charisma to convince a whole generation about a very flawed
theological understanding of Jesus and the Bible. And on top of that he raised
his son Franklin Graham, who is now one of the leaders in the radical right
wing political movement. A movement which has co-opted American evangelicalism
as a primary voting block for tea party Republicans – the types who prioritize
guns, benefits cuts to the poor and sick, and mass deportations – which is very
different than what the historical Jesus stood for.

Now that said, compared to that
movement which reflects the likes of his son Franklin Graham, Billy seemed a
lot more moderate in his tone (especially as he aged). He seemed to have a type
of love in his voice that we don’t sense as much from modern fundamentalists.
He was probably a good man to others around him, and he probably helped a lot
of people in need. He probably also convinced a lot of people to live for
something more holy and meaningful in their lives, which is definitely a good
thing. He was also once recorded later in his life as saying that everyone will
go to heaven as long as they have Christ in their heart (see here), even if
they’ve not realized it or understood it consciously – which is a very
inclusive message when compared to what we hear from many of today’s
fire-and-brimstone-veiled-by-a-starbucks-latte-and-skinny-jeans type of
pastors.

But again, he has hurt a lot of
people with his message; especially the LGBT population with his hard line
stances claiming that being gay is a serious sin which will be met with God’s
judgment. And his views that we were in our “last days” with Jesus returning at
any moment also caused many of his followers to pay little regard to urgent
environmental and climate justice issues. There were also reports that he once
suggested that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “put on the brakes a little” when he
started to practice civil disobedience for political change.

And lastly, I also recall years
ago a story about him and one of his best friends. They both began to recognize
the many inconsistencies and logical errors that came along with a literal
interpretation of the Bible. And it was recalled that when faced with that
dissonance Billy simply decided on faith to deem the Bible as God’s inerrant
word and live his life accordingly without any further questions. When the
facts and cognitive dissonance came, he simply shut it down to any further
evolution, which I think can be one of the most unfortunate things anyone could
ever do, especially if we plan to go out and evangelize the world to our point
of view.See https://progressivechristianity.org/resources/what-do-progressive-christians-think-of-billy-graham/.

Progressive Christians are those
committed to follow the moral teachings of Jesus and are not compelled to
believe in mystical man-made doctrines like those of the atonement doctrine or
Trinity.Unfortunately, few if any
churches promote their 8 Points of Progressive Christianity: By calling
ourselves progressive Christians, we mean we are Christians who…

1.Believe that following the path and teachings
of Jesus can lead to an awareness and experience of the Sacred and the Oneness
and Unity of all life;

2.Affirm that the teachings of Jesus provide
but one of many ways to experience the Sacredness and Oneness of life, and that
we can draw from diverse sources of wisdom in our spiritual journey;

3.Seek community that is inclusive of ALL
people, including but not limited to: